A wide variety of substances have been proposed for use as fat substitutes in food compositions. The chemical structures of such substances are selected such that they are more resistant to breakdown by the metabolic processes of the human digestive system which normally occur upon ingestion of conventional triglyceride lipids. Because of their increased resistance to digestion and absorption, the number of calories per gram available from the fat substitutes is considerably reduced as compared to common vegetable oils, animal fats, and other lipids. The use of such substances thus enables the preparation of reduced calorie food compositions useful in the control of body weight.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,861,613 describes one class of particularly useful fat substitutes wherein a polyol such as glycerin is alkoxylated with an epoxide such as propylene oxide and then esterified with any of a number of fatty acids or fatty acid equivalents to form an esterified alkoxylated polyol. Generally speaking, it is desirable to accomplish nearly complete esterification (i.e., to react at least 90% of the hydroxyl groups of the alkoxylated polyol intermediate with fatty acid). These substances have the physical and organoleptic properties of conventional triglyceride lipids, yet are significantly lower in available (absorbed) calories than edible oils owing to their pronounced resistance towards pancreatic lipase enzymatic hydrolysis. The thermal and oxidative stability of the esterified alkoxylated polyols renders them especially suitable for use in the preparation of reduced calorie food compositions requiring exposure to high temperatures.
The methods developed to date for the preparation of esterified alkoxylated polyol fat substitutes of this type have typically required multi-step procedures when a naturally occurring triglyceride is to be utilized as the source of the long chain ester groups incorporated into the esterified alkoxylated polyol. The triglyceride is first hydrolytically split into glycerin (which may be employed as the polyol component) and a mixture of fatty acids. The fatty acids (after separation from the glycerin) may be used directly without further modification as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,983,329. Alternatively, the fatty acids prior to use in an esterification reaction with an alkoxylated polyol may be converted into C.sub.1 -C.sub.4 alkyl esters (as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,175,232) or fatty acid halides (as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,861,613). The alkoxylated polyol must first be prepared by reacting an epoxide with a polyol such as glycerin, sugar alcohol, glycoside, monosaccharide, disaccharide or other organic compound having two or more hydroxy groups. While such multi-step procedures work well and afford esterified alkoxylated polyols suitable for use as fat substitutes, the number of steps involved, including both synthesis and purification steps, renders these substances considerably more costly than the triglycerides on which they are based. Since the esterified alkoxylated polyol is intended to entirely or substantially replace conventional high caloric triglycerides in food compositions and since certain types of food compositions will normally contain high levels of fat or oil, it is apparent there exists a great need for improved processes whereby the manufacturing cost of esterified alkoxylated polyols may be substantially reduced.